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MusicMagesty
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Name: Cassie
Birthday: 9/27/1987
Interests: *blank stare* wait. Am I interested in anything? oh oh, I've got it. I'm interested as to why that guy behind you is picking his nose.
Hey! Are you crazy, you can't turn around to look, he'll just disappear to make you think I'm losing my mind. Duh.
Expertise: I have superhuman powers. Yes, twas I that saved the world from imminent destruction many a time. But I have said too much already. *flys off*
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  MusicalCJ927
Member Since:
2/28/2004
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| UFORTE: Day 8. "The Final Frontier" (That was cheesy and I apologize)
This is where we woke up on Day 8. Well, sort of. Our campsite was actually at the bottom of this canyon. Palo Duro Canyon to be exact. It was a decent campsite, although it was extremely humid and buggy for the first time on the trip. That's okay though because the view is pretty awesome.
As we headed for home, we drove through a little town that had funny signs along the street. There was a "I Saw Her Again" sign and several others, but this one takes the cake.
We had one last stop to make before we pushed for home and that was the Cadillac Ranch. Here you can see several cars (more than in the picture) all with their back ends in the air. This is to show the evolution of the Cadillac tailfin. Whatever, you go, you spray paint on the cars, you take pictures... it's a good time! So it was kind of rainy and windy but we took lots of pictures.
Oh yeah and we met these two bikers from Chicago. On the left is Bubba and on the right is Sean. We took pictures of them, they took pictures of us. We took this picture together and then they asked us to ride on the back of their bikes with them. Some of our group may or may not have been interested in that proposition... "Sean is hot! Can I go with him?"... It made for a good road trip story though.
Somebody had already drawn the guitar so we wrote our names next to it and were on our way.
It was to be our last meaningful stop on the UFORTE trip. After that we pretty much drove through Oklahoma and Kansas. By the time we got to my house, we were pretty pooped and we went our separate ways. The two remaining riders in the truck, Ginger and Spike, had now crossed into adulthood and had to join the real world... as teachers... dun dun dun.
But all in all it was a fantastic trip with fantastic stories and even more fantastic pictures. 1200 pictures to be exact. Who's up for a slideshow?
In current news, I'm preparing for possibly the most stressful two weeks ever. I have to take care of my brother by myself for 4 days, pack and move into Sellards, complete a shift in Sellards, fly to Colorado, participate in activites relating to a wedding, fly back, drive to Lawrence, begin band on Monday, take care of speeding ticket on Wednesday, start classes on Thursday, and at some point I need to schedule physical therapy, unpack at Sellards and buy my books. Not to mention I have a party to attend on Wednesday and countless other little tasks to complete. Urg.
Yes, you read correctly. I did get a speeding ticket last Friday. It was pretty frustrating and it really was an unfortunate incident. They apparently just moved the speeding limit from 55 to 45 over a bridge and I of course, missed the one sign they provided. So there you have it. It was bound to happen sometime. Oh well. And the physical therapy is for my ankle, which has been bad since last year's marching season. I keep reinjuring myself so the therapy is just to strengthen it, not fix it. She thinks it should be okay for marching, but I'm pretty much always going to have a bum ankle. So what else is new...
But despite the stress, I'm done with work now. Yay!! Let me rephrase, TRIPLE WOOT! It was getting old real fast. I'm very excited to head back to Lawrence and get back into band. It should be a pretty awesome year.
~ "Why would you ever need 1200 pictures?!"
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| UFORTE: Day 7
On this day we dropped Kaitlin off at the airport in "The EP" and
headed off to White Sands near Fort Bliss. It's pretty awesome to look
at. We drove to a secluded area and romped on the sand dunes for a
while!
Amy's favorite pasttime was to go dune-jumping. This action shot
basically captures the idea. You get a running start and then jump down
the dune. Fun times!
Then we buried Stephanie. I mean, what else were we supposed to do?? It
was good times. And after brushing most of the sand out of places we
didn't even know we could get sand, we were back on the road.
Day 7's driving included passing through Earth, Texas and Halfway,
Texas. Go ahead and have a giggle about the Halfway Post Office, the
Halfway School, being Halfway there... yes, the jokes go on forever and
after 7 days of being on the road, they can be quite funny!
Lunch in Roswell, NM! We ate at the tasty Cover-up Cafe. They have all
kinds of signs about weather balloons and whatnot. We enjoyed the
nerdiness. But really, the food was yummy!
After lunch we had no choice but to meander around Roswell and hit the
UFO Museum. It was pretty hardcore and we smiled at the X-Files posters
they had up in the back. And we smirked at the section devoted to Area
51... having been there only a few days previous... Have I mentioned
we're nerds?
I don't have the pictures, but after the museum we walked down the road
a ways to this shop that lets you pay $2 and take pictures with aliens
in various senarios. They were fabulous pictures of things like sitting
on a couch with an alien, being in jail with an alien, being in school
with an alien... you know... but yeah, Stephanie's got the pictures.
On the evening of Day 7 we made it to Palo Duro Canyon and camped in
the valley of the canyon. Stephanie and Amy enjoyed some very buggy
showers and we went to sleep, but not before we mistook the rainfly for
an animal outside the tent. Oh well, what can you do...
~ You can't hide the truth! Roswell...Roswell! | | |
| My absence can be attributed to the seventh Harry Potter book, which I will not speak of at this current moment. 
On with the travel updates!
UFORTE: Day 4
This, dear readers, is the day. The "We're climbing up a freaking
mountain!" Day. The four ladies of UFORTE left camp at about 8:30 in
the morning and embarked upon the long road that lead to Teekaboo Peak.
And I do mean the long road. We first had to drive for an hour back to Alamo,
Nevada (home of the only gas station for something like 100 miles).
Then we had to drive for about an hour down a dirt road in a wildlife
reservation to get to the trail head. Our first clue that this would
not be an ordinary day should have been that the road was quite a bit
more narrow than we were lead to believe. Art the Antenna Cactus got
quite a beating from the nearby trees and we scrached the Road Panther. But we finally decided to forget
the truck and just walk up to the trail head.
We strapped on our backpacks that weighed the equivalent of 2-year-olds
and hiked up to the first campsite where the trail head began. Armed
with the GPS and some wild enthusiasm we took off for the epic hike.
Now, it is at this time that I mention we had no idea what we were
getting into. This mountain was steep and consisted of loose rock all
the way up. I believe it was an elevation gain of 3000 feet in a 1.6
mile hike. We were, indeed, nuts.
See, loose rock. It's crazy!
On the way up, the view was pretty amazing. You can see the faint line
between the mountains in the picture. We believe that is Groom Lake
Road (the road that leads to Area 51 and is the same road we traveled
the day before).
Unfortunately, once we neared the top, a previous ankle injury of mine
and the steepness of the trail (we're talking crawling on hands and
knees to reach the top) lead us to a decision to turn around and head
back down the mountain. It was definitely a disappointment, but hey,
we'd get a head start on the 17 hours of driving we had ahead of us.
So, since I was moving rather slow, Amy and Stephanie headed on down
the mountain to the second campsite to start a fire so we could eat
something before getting back on the road.
Now, it wasn't long at all before Kaitlin and I heard the sounds of
Stephanie and Amy playing Marco Polo with us. And then we reached the
second campsite and they weren't there. So we looked slightly puzzled
and decided to head down to the first campsite where they might have
gone to be closer to the truck. But no luck. So we thought maybe they
were still down at the truck, dropping off their 40-60 pound backpacks.
But again, no fellow hikers. It was at this point that Kaitlin and I
started to panic a little bit. But we decided to be optimistic, drop
our backpacks off at the truck and return to the second campsite to
wait for them to come strolling out of the woods with an "oops". After
an hour of waiting at the second campsite and yelling as loud as we
could, we returned to the truck out of restlessness, nervousness and
probably a bit of, oh I don't know, terror. Yeah, we were both a little
hysterical at this point. All that kept flashing through my mind was
what my dad told us before we left for the trip... "Don't wind up on
CNN."
So there we were, two girls who had never done serious hiking before
and only 2 nights of camping experience. Separated from the other two
members of our crew with absolutely no idea where they were. No cell
phone service. No other people around. 28 miles from civilization on a
mountain, in the middle of a wildlife reservation. Yeah, it would be an
understatement to say that we were freaked out.
So we fretted about what to do because we pretty much couldn't do
anything. Finally, in a moment of desparation I was looking into the
truck window debating whether it would be worth it to break the window
to retrieve the roadside assistance kit with flares when I saw a
note attached to the driver side door. We snatched the note and read
about a lady who was hiking in the area and thought she heard us
calling for a dog (remember: Marco Polo). Turns out, she was camping
about 4 miles down the road. Kaitlin and I frantically started down the
trail in hopes of finding this mysterious hiker. We were yelling for
help and feeling so releaved that there was someone available to help
us that the four-wheeler came practically out of nowhere and who was on
the back? Stephanie. Woo! Tragedy over!
Turns out they had gotten lost and decided to just continue down the
mountain until they got to the main road. They ate cold speghettios on
the side of the road and through some miracle ran into the lady that
had heard us calling. So she gave Stephanie a ride back to where we
were and we high-tailed it away from that mountain as fast as possible!
On our travels we crossed the Hoover Dam. Naturally, we made some Dam
jokes, took some Dam pictures and did some Dam observation. The Road
Panther was happy to be out of the trees and Art the Antenna Cactus
lost his eyes but we had a good laugh about the adventures in hiking
and had nice showers at the KOA in Kingman, Arizona.
A crazy, terrifying, exhausting and nutty day 4 it was. And what's the moral of this tale? DO NOT SPLIT UP WHEN YOU GO HIKING!!
~ Marco... | | |
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